Huang Yanzhen : The Latest Septuagenarian China Fashion Icon

She’s been trend­ing on and off Sina Weibo since Septem­ber 5, with wide news cov­er­age from the Far China Daily East to the West­ern Daily Mail East Coast : Huang Yan­zhen, aka the Granny God­dess. A quick @Regrann – how befit­ting.

From the back, she can pass for a woman 25 years less of age and when she turns her head to face the cam­era, what we see are not the ups and downs of life after a few dec­ades, but a well-estab­lished equi­lib­ri­um of self-con­fid­ence and eleg­ance. In a flash of faint and fad­ing mind, I couldn’t tell if call­ing her “grand­ma” would befit this appear­ance. This 73-year-old sway­ing down cat­walk wear­ing a qipao has garnered nation­al praise and pride. Huang is trend­ing.

This new China Fashion icon is in no hurry whatsoever ; it’s all about steadfast and gentle purity.

Huang is a Fuji­an Province nat­ive who now resides in Xia­men. In Janu­ary of this year, she was hand­picked from qipao-wear­ing con­test­ants from all over the world and invited to fly into Beijing and par­ti­cip­ate in an award cere­mony held at the offi­cial CPPCC Aud­it­or­i­um. She rap­idly became known as “China’s most fash­ion­able grand­mother”. A mere five months onwards, in June 2016, Huang was booked to shoot a Xia­men edit­or­i­al with fash­ion pho­to­grapher Jesse. That very same Xiaoye “Jesse” (aka Ding Guo­li­ang) who also cap­tured his afore­men­tioned 85-year-old farm­er grand­father on cam­era wear­ing some snazzy ensembles – you can review this pho­to-opp in Temper’s “Style Nev­er Gets Old” post. Fash­ion has come full circle, you might say.

So what does our latest sep­tua­gen­ari­an granny cat­walk queen have to say about all this qipao hoopla com­ing her way ? “I may be 73 of age, but I cer­tainly do not feel old.” And this new China Fash­ion icon is in no hurry what­so­ever ; it’s all about that stead­fast gentle pur­ity.